Bible’s backroads focus of educator’s new book

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This article was published 16/08/2020 (1783 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The latest book from a Steinbach writer and educator shines a light on overlooked and underread passages of the Bible.

Michael Zwaagstra self-published The Naked Man Flees: Timeless Truths from Obscure Parts of the Bible last month.

The 170-page book is divided into 40 short chapters, each of which tackles a biblical text that tends to breed bewilderment or discomfort in readers—if it’s read at all.

“We’ve kind of moved into a culture where everyone has a Bible on their bookshelves and on their phone, and no one reads it,” Zwaagstra, a high school teacher, city councillor, and Carillon opinion columnist, said.

“I attribute a lot of that to the internet and social media, it’s kind of shortened our attention spans. But in order to understand some of these more challenging passages, you have to dig in.”

A general decline in biblical literacy, and a growing if often unconscious avoidance of certain parts of the Bible, are trends Zwaagstra has sensed from the front of the room.

For 15 years he taught adult Sunday school classes at Evangelical Fellowship Church in Steinbach. More recently he became an adjunct instructor at Steinbach Bible College, where he teaches a course open to the public.

All that time in the classroom was like a barometer, allowing him to gauge how undergraduates, pastors, and laypeople make their way through the Bible.

“It became increasingly obvious that there are some parts of the Bible that even longtime Christians tend to miss,” Zwaagstra said.

While the content of The Naked Man Flees had been percolating for some time, Zwaagstra said the book came together this spring, when closures and cancellations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic left him with more free time.

His wife, Angela, designed the front cover of the book.

With many stories to choose from, Zwaagstra settled on 20 passages each from the Old and New Testaments.

“I wanted to send the message that both parts of the Bible are important,” he explained. “There’s way more to the Old Testament than just a few inspirational hero stories. There’s much more depth to it than that.”

Another factor guided his selection process.

“I selected parts that I never hear in sermons, in any context. There are just certain parts of the Bible that a lot of pastors just don’t preach from very often. It’s very tempting and very easy to stick to the well-worn stories, to the well-worn passages, the ones we’re all familiar with. It’s human nature: we tend to skip over the parts that don’t fit the narrative quite as well.”

In each chapter, Zwaagstra tried to illuminate a puzzling, uncomfortable, or unfamiliar passage by providing context. (He recommends reading the entire book in which a difficult passage is found.)

“One of the easiest ways to misread the Bible is to not look at the broader context,” he said.

Zwaagstra said his own reading of the Bible has changed over time. Passages he had glossed over suddenly jumped out when he started using an audio Bible.

“There’s been a few times I’m listening and going, ‘Whoa, that’s in there?’”

Zwaagstra said he hopes his new book, which follows A Sage on the Stage, a pedagogical treatise released last year, helps readers arrive at “a broader appreciation of the Bible.”

He said the brief chapters make the book suitable for Sunday school or devotional study.

The Naked Man Flees is available at Hull’s Family Bookstore in Steinbach and online from Amazon.ca.